For the Thanksgiving break, 2 other international students (India from Austrialia and Matheus from Brazil) and I went to Chicago and Cincinnati for 6 days. We departed from Huntington at Friday night by train - the train was late for about 2,5 hours and it took us more than 12 hours to go to Chicago. We arrived there at 1pm at the next day and went first to the hostel, which was in a really nice part of the city, where there were a lot of bars and restaurants. The hostel itself was also nice, there was a big area where we could just hang out, play games and drink some beer. After we checked in, we first made the plans for the days we were in "The windy city" and afterwards had dinner at a sushi bar near our hostel. At the next day we first wanted to go to the Magnificent Mile, which is a street with a lot of shops and other attractions. On out way to this street I just could not trust my eyes - there was a "Christkindmarkt"!!!! They had spiced wine, gingerbread hearts and many other typical things and I got a really good apple strudel (felt like home :-). As I already mentioned, we went to the Magnificent Mile afterwards where we could see a lot of stuff and there was a lot going on. After a little break we wanted to go to the Art Institute, but in front of Millenium Park, there was an ice skating ring, and we decided to go there as Matheus from Brazil never had skated before. The only bad thing about it was that it was raining all the time and so we became really wet - after a short stop at Starbucks we went back to our hostel, had dinner afterwards and also played poker and scrabble at night. At the next day, we went to the Art Institute in the morning (the day before it was too late to go there after skating) and afterwards we went to the museum of science & industry. Unfortunately on all days we have been to Chicago the weather was not really great - there was always a thick layer of fog over the city - and therefore we could not visit Willis Tower, where we would have had a great view over the city.
After these 3 days in Chicago, we left on Tuesday and went to Cincinnati. After lunch we departed by bus and arrived at about 10:25pm in Cincinnati. After we had a really good pizza, we were glad to go to bed after traveling the whole day. The accommodation was located in a part of the city where there was a great night life and it was only about 20 minutes walking from downtown. The "Bunkhouse" as it is called was a little bit alternative and messy, but that didn't really bother us. At Wednesday we first visited the baseball and football stadium of the Cincinnati sports clubs and looked around in the fan-shops. Afterwards we wanted to go the a famous Art Museum, but the walking distance was us too long, as it was pretty cold (below zero Celsius) and there was no bus going there - so we spent the evening watching a movie. After we had dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant, we spent the night in a bar which was close to our hostel. On that night there were a lot of people there because the next day was Thanksgiving. At the next day, we fist slept rather long. After we got up, it was pretty hard to find places to get breakfast/brunch, because most places were closed on Thanksgiving. After we found a nice coffee shop, we wanted to go to a tower and enjoy the view over the city, unfortunately this tower was also closed on that day (also the Art Museum). So the only thing we could do, was again going ice skating on a public ice rink in the middle of the city. For dinner, we had the same problem, we had for brunch - find a restaurant that is open and offers food for an acceptable price. We really were lucky - we found a place on the internet and just hoped that it was open and has food. When we arrived there, the owner told us that they offer a all-you-can-eat thanksgiving buffet plus drinks for free! We had a really nice dinner there and met very friendly people. Afterwards, we just went home and watched a movie. Our train back home should depart at about 3:30 in the morning. It was delayed twice, but that was not the problem. The taxi, we called was about 1 hour late and so we missed our train - After a few hours more sleep - we decided to rent a car and got back to Huntington at the next day at around 2pm.
Now the daily life of university will continue for two more weeks until the winter break starts. I hope that all the finals will pass successfully and I am really looking forward for the Christmas break.
